Beyond Prayer 9…Metta: goodwill and loving-kindness

MettaMay I be happy.May I be free from stress and pain.May I be free from animosity.May I be free from oppression.May I be free from trouble.May I look after myself with ease.

May all living beings be happy.May all living beings be free from animosity.May all living beings be free from oppression.May all living beings be free from trouble.May all living beings look after themselves with ease.[1]

Buddhaghosa does not recommend that the practitioners simply focus on an aspiration that they themselves be happy or attempt absorption. Instead, the meditators are urged to use themselves as an example: “Just as I want to be happy and dread pain, as I want to live and not die, so do other beings, too.” And thus when we pray the Metta we pray and chant for self and others (page 136).[2]

As we watch the news each evening and see the students on campuses around the country protesting for things that I thought would not still exist in 2015: hiring discrimination, race discrimination, hate speech, unresponsive administrations, sexual assaults, and more. Each of these protesters want for themselves the list of things we recite in the first verse of the Metta and they also want it for everyone else on planet earth. And thus, we chant for them in the second verse.

We can add those in the prison system in America and those in the Middle East who are being killed and bombed in their countries and homes, and in airplanes flying through the air after a family vacation. As a human race we need to work at learning how to live together with our diversity and cultures and religions or we will soon be an extinct species and all that will be left are the birds, the bees, and the trees.

Besides chanting this verse each and every day with love and passion, what can you do each day in your families, homes, workplaces and communities? Think small or think big but please think and then act. You just may save someone’s life. You never know.

May you be happy and find ways to share your happiness with everyone you meet.

2 Responses

Robin, thanks for those nice words. I enjoy sitting with at Zen, your energy is filling the room with love and joy. Thanks to Bruce as well for his shopping for the Tenzo Team! You are both the best. Love and Light, Kathy